Last week’s news about 50 per cent of provincial library funding being held back until October set off appropriate alarm bells.

The UCP government promised to cut social programs during the election in an effort to get spending under control after four years of big deficits by the NDP. Though if their honest with themselves, the red ink started years before with the previous Progressive Conservative government.

That being said, there has been no indication library funding will be edited down. The reason given for the hold on grant payment has been to allow the recently elected government to piece together its first budget, upon which time the remainder of the newly approved funding will be released. The NDP also did this when they were in power, though it is the exception rather than the rule.

If the government is smart, the library will be one place where numbers are not redacted.

Libraries have played a big roll in my life, my mom has worked in them while also serving on the library board back in my hometown, my wife has worked in them as has her mother. I even worked in one as part of a school cooperative in the early days of the internet to help the public understand how to use the web.

Books have always been apart of my life and their importance always front and centre. Libraries were the original Google and escape from reality.

They are, however, about far more than being a lender of the written or recorded word.

Their evolution has been that as a hub of social programming and education. They host work shops, demonstrations and courses. They provide spaces for community groups and clubs to meet.

Depending on the library you’ll find programs for technology, for moms and tots, and some even provide after school snacks for kids, in the same vein as schools providing breakfast for disadvantaged students. Most have banks of computers to provide access to the internet for those who need it and without the library would be disconnected from the world and opportunities to improve their situation.

They are a bastion of inclusivity and foundational element to our right to information and free speech.

Libraries still lend books, but they also loan out games, gadgets, bikes, sewing machines and other items.

They are boundless and limited by only their imaginations and, unfortunately, their bottom line.

Therein lies the rub.

The City of Spruce Grove, Town of Stony Plain and Parkland County all recognize the value libraries bring to their respective communities. The municipalities make up the lion’s share of funding for the public libraries in Spruce Grove and Stony Plain.

The Spruce Grove Public Library recently released a report showing for every dollar spent by the City on the library, there is a social return of $7.96. There are not many investments in this world with that kind of immediate return and impact.

It also means every dollar shed from a library budget is that much more devastating.

Major centres are able to weather the storm a little better than small towns and villages. The province only provides about 14 per cent of the government funding for the Stony Plain Public Library. It becomes much more problematic in the small communities where that number can climb as high as 70 per cent. When one takes into consideration the isolation of some of these locations and the limited mobility of much of their population, the library becomes even more critical to everyday life. They are a necessity, a lifeblood.

There are going to be cuts made by the UCP somewhere in the budget. We all know this. There will be pain felt, and the municipalities could feel quite a bit of it. The provincial and federal governments have formed a habit of downloading more and more financial burden on to the towns, cities and counties. The trend is not going to end.

If they are prudent, however, one place safe from the scalpel will be libraries, I have a feeling they will play an even bigger role going forward.